S 
533 

W5 
1874 


'cientific  and  Industrial 
Education  in  the 
United  States. 


SCIENTIFIC  AND  JNDUSTKIAL 
EDUCATION    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


AN    ADDRESS 


DELIVERED    BEFORE    THE 


NEW-YORK  STATE  AGRICULTURAL  SOCIETY, 


BY 


ANDREW    D.    WHITE,    LL.D., 

PRESIDENT    OF    CORNELL    UNIVERSITY. 


[REVISED  BY  THE  AUTHOR  FOR   THE  POPULAR  SCIENCE  MONTHLY.] 


NEW    YORK: 

D.    A  P  P  L  E  T  O  N    AND    COMPANY, 

549     AND     551     BROADWAY. 

1874. 


AND  INDUSTRIAL 

EDUCATION   IN    THE   UNITED    STATES. 
vJ 


AN    ADDRESS 


DELIVERED    BEFORE    THE 


NEW-YOKE  STATE  AGBICULTTJEAL  SOCIETY. 


BY 


AXDRETV    D.    WHITE,    LL.D., 

PRESIDENT   OF   CORNELL   tTMVERSITT. 


[REVISED  BY  THE  AUTHOR  FOR  THE  POPULAR  SCIEXCE 


NEW    YORK: 

D.    APPLETOK    AXD    COMPANY, 

649    AND     551     BROADWAY. 
1874. 


SCIENTIFIC  AND  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION  IN  THE 
UNITED  STATES.1 

BY  ANDREW  D.  WHITE,  LL.  D., 

PRESIDENT     OF     CORNELL     UNIVERSITY. 

A  LITTLE  more  than  two  hundred  years  ago,  in  England  of  the 
-£A_  Roundheads  and  Cavaliers,  a  voice  was  raised  to  propose  that 
young  men  receive  instruction  bearing  on  the  various  national  indus- 
tries. He  who  proposed  this  was  a  man  of  great  genius — one  of  the 
true  priests  and  prophets  of  his  time.  He  foresaw  and  foretold  many 
great  modern  inventions,  and  among  them  the  steam-engine.  His 
brain  helped  to  think  out  its  principles,  his  hands  helped  to  shape  its 
groundwork.  With  pen  and  tongue  he  sought  to  promote  the  "  new 
education;"  but  he  had  fallen  on  evil  times.  With  Strafford  and 
Laud  on  one  side,  and  Hampden  and  Cromwell  on  the  other,  there 
was  but  poor  hearing  for  the  industrial  ideas  of  the  Marquis  of  Wor- 
cester. Persecuted,  maligned,  and  a  bankrupt,  he  died,  and,  to  all 
appearance,  his  idea  died  with  him.  For  two  centuries  afterward  Ox- 
ford and  Cambridge  solemnly  ground  out  the  old  scholastic  product 
in  the  old  scholastic  way. 

About  fifty  years  ago,  a  body  of  the  best  scholars  and  thinkers  in 
England  made  another  attempt.  Their  endeavor  was,  to  found  an  in- 
stitution giving  an  education  fitted  to  the  needs  of  their  land  and  time. 
They  established  the  University  of  London.  Never  had  a  plan  more 
brilliant  advocates.  Brougham,  Sydney  Smith,  and  Macaulay,  spoke 
and  wrote  for  it ;  but  their  success  was  small.  The  institution  was 
unsectarian,  therefore  the  Church  declared  against  it  as  "  godless ; " 
it  gave  instruction  in  modern  learning  as  well  as  in  ancient  learning, 
therefore  the  great  body  of  solemn  scholars  declared  it  unsound  ; 
some  of  its  ideas  and  methods  were  new,  therefore  a  multitude  of 
leaders  of  society  declared  it  unsafe.  The  institution  was  kept  down, 
and  from  that  day  to  this  has  never  taken  the  high  place  to  which  its 
plan  and  work  entitled  it. 


4  THE  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

About  thirty  years  since,  the  strongest  man  who  has  ever  stood  in 
an  American  college  presidency  made  an  effort  in  the  same  direction. 
Francis  Wayland  knew  what  there  was  of  good  in  the  old  scholarship 
and  was  loyal  to  it,  but  he  saw  that  new  times  make  new  demands, 
and  he  planned  out  and  endeavored  to  work  out  a  system  of  education 
which  should  meet  these  demands.  All  to  no  purpose.  It  was  the 
old,  old  story — another  great  man,  with  his  great  idea,  as  Carlyle 
phrases  it,  "trampled  under  the  hoofs  of  jackasses,"  or,  as  Wayland 
himself  phrased  it  more  mildly,  "  nibbled  to  death  by  ducks." 

Various  minor  attempts  were  made — some  of  them,  like  Eaton's 
noble  effort  at  Troy,  very  fruitful ;  but  no  general  plan,  no  large  in- 
stitution was  created  worthy  of  the  great  interest  involved. 

About  five  years  later,  Mr.  Lawrence,  of  Massachusetts,  a  thought- 
ful manufacturer,  made  another  attempt.  He  saw  the  necessity  of 
education  bearing  on  the  great  industries  of  the  country,  and  made  to 
Harvard  College  what  in  those  days  was  called  a  princely  gift.  Thus 
was  founded  the  "Lawrence  Scientific  School,"  at  Cambridge,  and  thus 
did  industrial  studies  get  their  first  foothold  in  a  great  university. 

About  five  years  later  still,  Mr.  Sheffield,  of  Connecticut,  also  a 
thoughtful  business-man,  recognized  this  great  necessity.  By  a  gen- 
erous donation  he  founded  the  "  Sheffield  Scientific  School "  at  Yale 
College,  and  thus  these  studies  got  foothold  at  a  second  great  uni- 
versity. 

So  much,  then,  was  gained.  Some  few  of  the  studies  bearing  on 
the  great  modern  industries  had  been  taken  under  the  care  of  great 
university  corporations  ;  but  there  was  one  drawback.  In  neither  of 
these  universities  were  the  new  studies  received  into  full  fellowship 
with  the  old.  The  Scientific  School  was  kept  very  distinct  from  the 
"  College  proper."  Buildings,  courses,  and  studies,  were  kept  well 
apart;  the  student  in  the  sciences  was  not  considered  the  equal  of  the 
student  in  "  the  classics."  The  student  preparing  for  an  industrial 
profession  was  not  considered  as  of  the  same  caste  with  the  student 
preparing  for  a  "  learned  profession."  He  lived  in  a  different  building, 
had  lectures  and  recitations  in  different  rooms,  was  instructed  by  dif- 
ferent professors,  was  graduated  at  a  different  time  and  place.  He 
was  not  considered  as  properly  of  the  graduating  class  of  his  year. 
Ask  any  Yale  or  Harvard  man  for  the  names  of  his  classmates,  and  it 
never  occurs  to  him  to  mention  the  graduates  of  his  year  from  the 
scientific  departments.  Nay,  whether  it  was  that  young  men  taking 
scientific  studies  were  considered  as  ipso  facto  lost  souls,  or  as  having 
no  souls  to  be  saved  at  all,  they  were  not  admitted  to  the  students' 
seats  at  the  college  chapel — they  were  practically  held  as  of  an  infe- 
rior order. 

The  next  step  was  made  at  the  State  University  of  Michigan. 
Here,  for  the  first  time  in  a  university,  a  student  in  general  or  indus- 
trial science  was  admitted  to  full  equality  with  a  student  in  classics. 


SCIENTIFIC  AND   INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.         5 

So  far  as  their  studies  were  the  same,  they  sat  in  the  same  rooms, 
heard  the  same  lectures  from  the  same  professors,  were  admitted  to 
the  same  chapel,  received  their  degrees  at  the  same  time  and  place, 
went  through,  the  same  ceremonies,  and  stood  as  equals  on  the  roll  of 
graduates. 

Still  the  provision  for  industrial  education  was  wretchedly  meagre. 
Other  nations  had  meanwhile  shot  far  ahead  of  our  own  in  this  respect. 
Germany,  France,  and  even  England,  had  been  aroused.  They  had 
recognized  the  fact  that  the  greatest  warfare  of  the  nineteenth  century 
is  industrial  warfare — the  struggle  between  great  nations  for  suprem- 
acy in  the  various  industries,  and  for  the  control  of  the  various  markets. 
France  had  developed  magnificently  her  system,  putting  nearly  half  a 
million  dollars  into  a  collection  of  models  for  the  School  of  Arts  and 
Trades  alone.  Germany  had  established  a  multitude  of  "  Real  Schu- 
len"  and  of  Technical  and  Agricultural  Colleges.  England  was  already 
making  preparations  for  her  great  institution  at  South  Kensington,  on 
which  she  has  lavished  millions. 

But,  just  as  our  great  rebellion  was  drawing  on,  an  attempt  was 
made  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States.  Years  before,  that  pure 
and  great  man,  Dr.  Channing,  had  urged  that  the  proceeds  of  the  sales 
of  public  lands  be  consecrated  to  the  education  of  the  people.  An 
attempt  was  now  made ;  but,  though  the  good  sense  of  Congress  car- 
ried a  bill,  it  was  vetoed  by  James  Buchanan.  But  the  friends  of  the 
measure  still  pressed  on.  A  chorus  of  optimists,  pessimists,  sham 
economists,  holdbacks,  and  do-nothings,  opposed  the  measure ;  but  a 
true  statesman  led  the  army  of  education.  Justin  S.  Merrill,  of  Ver- 
mont, stood  then  as  now  in  the  United  States  Senate.  Let  his  name 
be  long  remembered.  Statues  shall  be  erected  to  him  long  after  the 
little  great  men  who  tried  to  thwart  him  are  forgotten.  The  bill  was 
passed,  and  it  was  signed  by  Abraham  Lincoln. 

I  ask  you  now  to  look  a  moment  at  the  passage  of  that  bill.  Cen- 
turies hence  men  shall  look  back  upon  it  as  one  of  the  noblest  things 
in  American  annals.  Why  ? 

My  friends,  have  you  forgotten  those  days,  their  discouragements, 
their  forebodings,  the  morning  beginning  with  "  would  God  it  were 
evening,"  and  the  evening  ending  with  "  would  God  it  were  morning  ?  " 
It  was  the  darkest  hour  since  Valley  Forge ;  lives,  laws,  family  ties, 
treasure — all  seemed  cast  into  the  abyss — and  the  abyss  ever  growing 
wider,  and  deeper,  and  blacker — and  yet,  while  the  American  Con- 
gress was  providing  for  the  most  tremendous  home  policy,  and  carry- 
ing on  the  most  difficult  foreign  policy  of  modern  times,  they  found 
leisure  to  plan  and  carry  out  a  great,  comprehensive,  and  far-reaching 
system  of  national  education. 

Gentlemen,  it  was  one  of  the  great  glories  of  Rome  in  its  best  * 
days  that  its  statesmen  did  not  despair  of  the  Republic  in  its  black- 
est hours.     £fay,  when  a  victorious  Carthaginian  army  was  encamped 


6  THE  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

on  Roman  soil,  so  great  was  Roman  faith  in  Roman  destiny,  that  the 
very  soil  at  that  moment  trampled  by  enemies'  feet  was  sold  at  auc- 
tion and  bought  by  competition.  But  here  was  greater  faith ;  here 
was  nobler  patriotism.  While  the  windows  of  the  Senate-house  were 
rattling  with  the  enemy's  cannon,  those  men  had  such  faith  in  the  des- 
tiny of  the  nation,  and  such  trust  in  the  arts  of  peace,  that  they 
quietly  and  firmly  legislated  into  being  this  great,  comprehensive  sys- 
tem of  industrial  and  scientific  education.  In  all  human  annals  I 
know  of  no  more  noble  utterance  of  faith  in  national  destiny  out  from 
the  midst  of  national  calamity. 

But  what  was  this  measure  ? 

The  question  is  pertinent,  and  all  the  more  so  now,  on  account  of 
sundry  efforts  to  misrepresent  it.  Look  at  the  act  of  Congress  itself. 
You  see  at  once  that  it  did  not  provide  simply  for  agricultural  col- 
leges, nor  simply  for  college  of  the  mechanic  arts.  No  ;  the  inten- 
tion was  broader  and  deeper  than  that.  It  provided  that  "  subjects 
relating  to  agriculture  and  the  mechanic  arts  "  should  be  made  "  lead- 
ing branches,"  "without  excluding  other  classical  and  scientific 
branches,"  and  including  "  military  tactics." 

What,  then,  was  the  purpose  ?  It  was  to  provide  fully  for  an  in- 
dustrial, scientific,  and  general  education  suited  to  our  land  and  time 
— an  education  in  which  scientific  and  industrial  studies  should  be 
knit  into  its  very  core,  while  other  studies  should  also  be  provided 
for.  And,  besides  this,  as  it  had  been  seen  that  the  States  in  rebellion 
had  gained  great  advantage  from  the  military  education  of  students, 
it  was  declared  that  "  instruction  in  military  tactics  shall  also  be  in- 
cluded." 

The  act  of  1862  was,  then,  a  noble,  comprehensive  scheme,  look- 
ing, as  you  see,  first  of  all,  at  the  industries  of  the  nation,  but  at  the 
same  time  insisting  on  provision  for  the  broadest  scientific  and  general 
culture. 

I  pass  now  to  the  reception  of  the  benefits  of  the  act  by  the  various 
States. 

Under  the  law,  land-scrip  was  given  the  different  States,  based 
upon  the  representation  of  each  State  in  Congress,  scrip  for  thirty 
thousand  acres  being  issued  for  each  representative  and  senator.  You 
will  note  here,  in  passing,  one  more  provision  showing  thoughtful 
statesmanship.  It  was  provided  that,  except  in  the  case  of  States 
having  public  lands  within  their  own  borders,  no  State  should1'1  locate  " 
the  scrip.  The  great  majority  of  the  States  could  not,  therefore,  ob- 
tain land.  They  could  only  take  the  scrip  and  sell  it  at  market  prices. 
An  individual  might  buy  the  scrip  and  locate  it ;  a  State  could  not. 
Thus  was  prevented  any  troublesome  imperium  in  imperio,  such  as 
would  have  been  created,  for  example,  had  the  State  of  New  York 
been  allowed  to  acquire  a  million  of  acres  in  the  heart  of  the  State 
of  Wisconsin. 


SCIENTIFIC  AND  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.        7 

The  various  States  accepted  the  scrip,  and  in  almost  all  cases  sold 
it  at  low  prices,  the  market  being  glutted ;  and  with  the  proceeds 
each  established  its  institution  under  the  act  as  its  interests  demanded, 
or  as  the  money  realized  permitted. 

Note  now  another  important  fact.  Some  States — as  Connecticut, 
Rhode  Island,  and  New  Jersey,  where  the  fund  was  too  small  to 
establish  a  separate  institution — gave  it  for  the  endowment  of  scien- 
tific and  industrial  education  in  an  existing  institution.  Connecticut 
gave  her  share  to  Yale,  Rhode  Island  gave  hers  to  Brown,  New  Jer- 
sey gave  hers  to  Rutgers,  New  Hampshire  gave  hers  to  Dartmouth. 

States  which  received  a  larger  share — but  still  not  enough  to  carry 
out  the  act  in  all  its  parts — gave  theirs  to  purely  agricultural  colleges. 
Of  these  were  Michigan  and  Iowa.  Others,  with  a  larger  share, 
divided  theirs  between  an  institution  for  agricultural  and  an  institu- 
tion for  technical  instruction.  Of  these,  were  Massachusetts  and  Mis- 
souri. A  few  which  received  the  largest  share  determined  to  cany 
out  the  act  in  its  whole  scope  by  founding  a  single  institution,  in 
which  industrial  and  scientific  education  should  be  united  to  general 
instruction  and  culture.  Of  these  were  Illinois  and  New  York. 

It  may  appear  to  some  that  this  difference  in  modes  of  carrying 
out  the  act  in  the  different  States  was  a  misfortune.  Far  from  it.  I 
am  prepared  to  maintain,  against  all  comers,  that,  of  all  the  good  for- 
tune which  has  attended  the  carrying  out  of  the  act  of  1862,  this 
variety  of  plans  and  methods  in  the  various  States  was  the  best. 

Look  at  it  for  a  moment.  Of  all  men  none  has  stamped  more  ideas 
into  the  thinking  of  this  generation  than  has  John  Stuart  Mill ;  but 
among  all  his  thoughts  regarding  education  I  remember  none  more 
pregnant  and  original  than  one  regarding  systems  of  public  education. 
It  is  that,  with  all  its  benefits,  such  a  system  has  one  great  danger, 
and  that  is,  its  tendency  to  shape  all  minds  by  the  same  course  of  edu- 
cation into  the  same  mould,  thus  preventing  the  fruitful  collision  and 
friction  of  mind  with  mind ;  thus  bringing  on  a  stagnant,  barren  sort 
of  Chinese  routine  in  thought. 

Happily  for  us,  by  leaving  these  funds  to  each  State  for  manage- 
ment, this  evil  has  been  avoided.  And  not  only  this,  but  almost  every 
one  of  these  institutions  has  found  out  something  of  use  to  every 
other.  There  is,  indeed,  unity  between  all,  but  not  uniformity  ;  and 
here  let  me  say  that  having  made  it  my  business  to  look  closely  into 
the  methods  of  all  these  institutions,  and  to  visit  and  personally  in- 
spect many,  in  order  to  bring  home  what  might  be  good  for  our  own 
tise,  I  can  bear  testimony  that  never  have  funds  been  more  carefully 
applied  and  made  to  do  more  in  furthering  this  great  purpose. 

I  know  every  one  of  these  institutions,  and  I  know  not  one  which 
is  not  making  a  noble  return  on  all  it  has  received. 

No  sooner  was  the  bill  passed  than  a  multitude  of  colleges  rushed 
forward  to  these  legislative  halls  in  a  scramble  for  the  fund.  At  one 


8  THE  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

time  there  were  twenty  institutions  calling  themselves  colleges  and  uni 
versities  of  various  religious  denominations  clamoring  at  Albany  for  a 
scrap  of  this  endowment.  As  scrip  was  selling,  the  whole  fund,  had 
not  an  individual  come  forward  to  "  locate"  it,  would  have  amounted 
to  about  $600,000.  Dividing  this  among  the  twenty,  there  would  not 
have  been  enough  money  to  give  a  single  professorship  to  each. 

This  the  Legislature  of  New  York  saw,  and,  despite  the  pressure 
from  these  institutions,  it  wisely  determined  not  to  fritter  away  the 
fund,  but  to  concentrate  it.  It  recognized  the  fact  that  for  primary 
education  the  rule  is  diffusion  of  resources,  but,  for  advanced  educa- 
tion, concentration,  and  it  wisely  concentrated  the  fund  upon  an  insti- 
tution known  as  the  People's  College,  at  Havana. 

The  endowment  was  given  to  the  People's  College  on  certain  con- 
ditions. Among  them,  it  was  required  that  the  institution  should 
have  a  certain  amount  of  land,  accommodations  for  a  certain  number 
of  students,  a  Faculty  of  a  certain  size,  a  certain  equipment,  and  that 
it  should  be  free  from  incumbrance.  A  year  went  by,  and  these  con- 
ditions were  not  complied  with.  Still  the  Legislature  waited,  and 
sturdily  refused  to  yield  to  clamors  for  frittering  away  the  fund.  An- 
other year  went  by,  and  still  nothing  was  done  ;  and,  what  was  worse, 
it  was  discovered  that  a  bill  had  been  introduced  to  relieve  the  People's 
College  of  these  conditions.  At  this,  Mr.  Ezra  Cornell  came  forward 
and  offered  to  pledge  an  endowment  of  $500,000  to  a  new  institution, 
provided  the  funds  were  transferred  to  it.  A  bill  was  passed  charter- 
ing such  a  new  institution  ;  but,  in  order  that  full  justice  might  be 
done  the  People's  College,  it  was  allowed  three  months  to  put  itself 
iu  possession  of  such  sum  as  the  Board  of  Regents  of  the  State 
should  declare  equivalent  to  compliance  with  the  conditions  of  the 
original  act. 

The  Regents,  after  full  examination,  fixed  the  sum  at  less  than 
$170,000.  For  nearly  three  years,  then,  that  institution  might  have 
obtained  the  whole  endowment  had  its  friends,  or  had  that  locality, 
raised  for  it  a  sum  of  less  than  $170,000.  The  time  passed — they  still 
did  nothing.  Mr.  Cornell  then  came  forward  and  redeemed  his 
pledge ;  and  thus  was  founded,  for  scientific,  industrial,  and  general 
education,  the  Cornell  University. 

So  much  for  the  main  features  of  the  struggle  toward  the  establish- 
ment of  what  has  been  called  the  "  New  Education  "  in  the  United 
States  and  the  State  of  New  York. 

But  what  is  this  new  education  ?  I  ask  you  to  look  first  at  its 
special  purpose,  and  finally  at  its  general  scope.  And,  first  among 
the  special  departments  grouping  themselves  under  such  a  system,  I 
name  the  COLLEGE  OP  AGRICULTURE. 

And  here  let  me  refer  to  a  misapprehension,  which  should  be  cor- 
rected at  the  outset.  For  a  typical  example  of  this,  I  take  up  a  paper 
read  at  the  recent  Educational  Convention  at  Elmira,  by  the  Rev.  Dr. 


SCIENTIFIC  AND  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.        9 

McCosh,  President  of  Princeton  College.  In  that  paper,  the  whole 
national  and  State  policy  regarding  scientific  and  industrial  education 
was  condemned.  The  decision  arrived  at  by  two  different  Congresses 
of  the  United  States,  and  by  nearly  thirty  State  Legislatures,  the  plan 
adopted  by  nearly  thirty  Boards  of  Trustees  and  Faculties  in  the  vari- 
ous States — many  of  them  after  careful  study  of  institutions  at  home 
and  abroad — were  dismissed  with  contempt.  The  main  argument 
was,  so  far  as  argument  can  be  detected  among  the  multitude  of  asser- 
tions, that  Scotland,  from  which  the  doctor  had  not  long  before  emi- 
grated, had  got  along  well  enough  without  any  provision  for  agricult- 
ural instruction. 

Never  was  there  a  more  admirable  illustration  of  the  thoughts  put 
forth  by  James  Russell  Lowell,  on  "  a  certain  condescension  in  for- 
eigners." To  two  institutions  the  doctor  paid  his  respects  by  name, 
one  being  Rutgers  College,  in  New  Jersey ;  the  other  Cornell  Univer- 
sity. The  first  of  these,  Rutgers  College,  it  would  appear  had  com- 
mitted an  unpardonable  sin.  While  the  doctor's  learned  predecessors, 
at  Princeton,  had  been  preaching  against  "  science  falsely  so  called," 
the  Rutgers  College  authorities  had  received  that  portion  of  the  col- 
lege land-grant  fund  which  came  to  New  Jersey,  and  had  established 
an  admirable  school  for  applied  science.  This  it  was,  doubtless,  which 
led  the  doctor,  in  the  heart  of  this  State  of  ours  which  glories  in  its 
descent  from  the  men  who  founded  the  Dutch  Republic,  to  stigma- 
tize his  sister  institution  in  New  Jersey  as  "  managed  by  a  pack  of 
Dutchmen." 

His  reference  to  the  Cornell  University  was  of  another  character, 
and  not  all  my  respect  for  the  doctor's  ability  as  a  metaphysician  will 
allow  me  here  to  suppress  the  fact  that  his  whole  argument  was  based 
upon  one  of  the  most  astounding  misrepresentations  ever  attempted 
upon  an  American  audience. 

This  misrepresentation  was  in  regard  to  the  law  of  Congress  of 
1862.  Throughout  the  doctor's  address  the  idea  is  conveyed  that  the 
law  of  1862  contemplated  solely  the  establishment  of  exclusively  agri- 
cultural colleges. 

Nothing  could  be  more  wide  of  the  fact.  Had  the  doctor  ever 
read  that  law  he  would  have  seen  that,  while  "  subjects  relating  to 
agriculture  and  the  mechanic  arts  "  were  named  as  "  leading  branches," 
it  was  expressly  declared  in  the  act  that  other  scientific  and  classical 
branches  should  not  be  excluded.  Nay,  more,  he  would  have  seen 
that  so  broad  was  the  intention  of  Congress  that  the  wording  of  the 
act  is,  that  "  subjects  relating  to  agriculture  and  the  mechanic  arts  " 
shall  be  taught,  thus  giving  the  authorities  permission  to  extend  their 
teaching  into  every  field  of  learning  which  could  strengthen  these  de- 
partments or  elevate  them. 

I  am  aware  that,  in  opposition  to  the  plain  intent  of  the  act  of 
1862,  the  doctor  may  fall  back  upon  its  title,  in  which,  for  the  sake  of 


10  THE  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

brevity,  only  the  leading  objects  of  the  colleges  are  mentioned ;  but, 
had  he  read  even  so  accessible  an  exposition  of  law  as  Kent's  "  Com- 
mentaries," he  would  have  found  that  every  act  is  to  be  construed  by 
its  contents  and  not  by  its  title. 

But  the  doctor  was  especially  hilarious  over  the  small  number  of 
graduates  from  our  agricultural  colleges. 

Let  us  look  at  this.  The  number  is  at  present  very  small,  but  I 
presume  that  no  thoughtful  man  expected  that  at  so  early  a  period 
after  their  establishment  the  number  would  be  very  large,  nor,  indeed, 
do  I  expect  that  for  some  years  the  number  will  greatly  increase.  In 
a  new  country  like  ours,  those  professions  which  present  the  most 
brilliant  returns  will  be  sought  for  first.  Hence  we  find  that,  when  a 
farmer  decides  to  educate  his  son,  it  is  not  generally  with  the  idea  of 
making  him  a  farmer.  And,  even  when  he  does  bring  him  up  as  a 
farmer,  he  has  great  doubts  as  to  the  value  of  any  instruction  for  that 
purpose  outside  of  the  old  farm  routine. 

But  while  I  allow  freely  that  this  is  the  case  now,  I  can  state  quite 
as  confidently  that  this  condition  of  things  cannot  continue  for  many 
years.  There  are  those  now  living  among  us  who  will  stand  among  a 
hundred  millions  of  citizens  within  the  boundaries  of  our  Republic. 
When  that  day  comes — nay,  long  before — this  present  condition  of 
things  must  change.  The  present  system  of  routine  cultivation — this 
present  system  of  "  skinning  "  lands  and  then  running  away  to  soils 
more  fruitful,  in  the  intention  of  robbing  and  running  away  from  them 
in  turn — cannot  last.  Men  must  get  a  subsistence  on  less  and  less 
land ;  and  they  can  only  get  it  by  bringing  to  bear  upon  it  better 
and  better  cultivation.  How  soon  we  shall  come  to  the  division  of 
property  in  the  Scotch  Lothians  or  the  Belgian  Pays  de  Waes,  with 
their  small  farms  exquisitely  tilled,  and  supporting  well  a  body  of 
thrifty  men,  I  cannot  say ;  but  the  steady  approximation  to  it  is  as 
inevitable  as  fate.  And  at  the  same  time  that  this  goes  on,  the  profes- 
sions hitherto  known  as  "  learned  "  will  be  more  and  more  thoroughly 
filled.  We  see  the  beginnings  of  this  now.  Already  is  it  becoming 
less  and  less  easy  for  the  farmer's  boy  to  be  sure  that  the  little  dark 
office  in  the  great  city  block,  swarming  with  lawyers,  is,  after  all,  so 
much  more  promising  than  the  open  fields  and  the  work  of  the  farmer. 

And  now,  what  should  this  industrial  education  be  ?  Many  men, 
hastily  looking  over  the  subject,  have  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  it 
should  consist  in  simply  teaching  the  plain  arts  of  husbandry  and  of 
mechanics;  that  is,  that  the  great  object  should  be  to  train  young 
men  simply  or  mainly  to  hoe  or  spade  or  plough  in  the  fields,  or  to 
make  chairs  or  shoes,  or  hats  or  boats,  in  the  shops.  There  could  be 
no  more  wretched  perversion  of  the  trust  imposed  by  Congress.  The 
phraseology  of  the  act  of  1862  was  chosen  with  great  care,  and,  when 
it  speaks  of  "branches  relating  to  agriculture  and  the  mechanic  arts," 
it  means  just  what  it  says.  It  meant  to  provide  that  all  applicable 


SCIENTIFIC  AND   INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.       u 

science  be  brought  to  bear  on  those  arts.  It  meant  to  provide  for  the 
education  of  men  who  could  develop  them  and  improve  them.  Merely 
to  add,  to  the  millions  now  intelligently  practising  these  arts,  a  few 
more  intelligent  farmers  or  artisans  each  year,  would  be  a  wretchedly 
inadequate  return  for  these  endowments.  The  places  for  imparting 
the  simple,  usual  practical  education  for  agricultural  and  mechanical 
pursuits  are  the  millions  of  farms  and  workshops  in  the  country.  No- 
where else  can  such  practical  knowledge  be  afforded  so  cheaply  or  so 
effectively. 

The  national  institutions  for  education  should,  indeed,  have  farms 
and  workshops ;  but  the  foremost  object  of  these  should  be,  not  to 
afford  simple  employment  to  young  men,  but  to  give  them,  in  connec- 
tion with  their  studies  in  the  sciences,  what  may  be  called  laboratories, 
where  they  can  see  science  applied  in  as  practical  a  manner  as  possible 
— laboratories,  whether  field  or  shop,  where  they  can  see  sciences 
limited  by  the  necessities  of  practice.  It  cannot  be  too  much  insisted 
upon  that  the  main  object  of  these  institutions  should  be  to  send  out 
men,  with  minds  trained  by  observation  and  experiment,  to  develop  the 
various  agricultural  and  other  industries,  and  to  improve  them,  and 
not  simply  to  increase,  by  an  almost  infinitesimal  fraction,  the  number 
of  those  engaged  in  the  usual  industries  pursued  with  a  little  more  in- 
telligence, in  the  usual  way. 

But  it  is  said  that  scientific  and  industrial  education  does  not  bet- 
ter agriculture.  Does  it  not?  Of  all  assertions  this  is  the  most  fear- 
ful indictment  against  the  most  extended  field  of  human  thought  and 
work.  If  this  be  true,  then  is  agriculture  the  only  industrial  pursuit 
unworthy  of  a  human  being ;  for  this  assertion  would  not  be  made 
against  any  other  branch  of  human  industry.  But  it  is  not  true. 
The  whole  history  of  agriculture  shows  exactly  the  reverse  of  this. 
Look  at  those  wonderful  "  Tables  in  Comparative  Sociology,"  by  Her- 
bert Spencer,  just  issued,  and  study  there  the  progress  of  agriculture 
and  other  industries  from  their  rudest  beginnings,  and  you  see  that 
skill  in  observation  and  reasoning  on  observation  have  been  steadily 
.improving  agriculture,  at  the  same  time  that  they  have  improved  other 
industries.  f 

But  grant  that  the  number  of  students  devoted  wholly  to  agricult- 
ure is  small,  it  is  not  these  alone  whose  education  tells  upon  agricult- 
ure. Even  a  partial  course  in  it  has  great  value.  It  was  the  remark 
of  a  very  distinguished  statesman  of  this  Commonwealth — one  who 
occupied  this  desk  as  Speaker,  yonder  chamber  as  Governor,  and  who 
received  the  suffrages  of  many  of  his  countrymen  for  the  highest  office 
in  their  gift — that  the  main  thing  in  agricultural  education  is  to  do 
something  to  make  agricultural  pursuits  attractive.  His  view  is  that 
whereas  in  England  every  man  longs  to  obtain  a  competency  to  enable 
him  to  retire  from  the  city,  here  men  seek  to  escape  from  the  country 
to  the  city ;  and  that  we  should  attempt  to  bring  about  a  change  of 


12  THE  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

this  sentiment  in  our  educated  young  men.  The  author  of  that  re- 
mark is  Horatio  Seymour.  It  struck  me  powerfully  as  sound  and  just, 
and,  shortly  after  the  establishment  of  the  Cornell  University,  the 
trustees  adopted  a  rule  by  which  every  student  in  every  department — 
as  a  condition  for  graduation — must  hear  a  course  of  lectures  on  gen- 
eral agriculture. 

I  am  glad  to  state  that,  although  the  rule  was  received  with  some 
grumbling  at  first,  that  grumbling  stopped  immediately  after  the  first 
lecture.  Said  a  student  to  me  at  that  time,  "  These  lectures  make  us 
all  wish  to  get  hoes,  and  go  at  scratching  up  the  ground  at  once."  The 
lecturer  for  this  general  purpose  is  John  Stanton  Gould.  May  his  in- 
terruption by  ill  health,  which  has  deprived  us  of  his  service  the  past 
year,  be  but  temporary !  Long  may  he  be  spared  to  the  University  and 
the  State,  for  whose  good  he  has  so  steadily  and  so  earnestly  labored ! 

But  suppose  that  no  young  men  came  forward  to  take  agricultural 
studies,  the  new  education  would  still  tell  powerfully  on  agriculture. 
Think  you  that  we  can  send  out  year  after  year — as  we  did  last  year — 
a  hundred  graduates  from  all  our  various  departments,  whose  powers 
of  observation  have  been  trained  and  whose  real  knowledge  of  sub- 
jects bearing  on  agriculture  has  been  extended  by  close  study  in  Bot- 
any, Animal  Physiology,  Geology,  and  Chemistry,  without  its  telling 
ultimately  on  the  progress  of  agriculture  ? 

But  suppose  that  not  one  student  was  even  thus  educated,  I  main- 
tain that  the  State  and  nation  would  receive  more  than  the  equivalent 
of  its  endowment. 

Look  at  a  few  figures.  The  last  census  gives  certain  agricultural 
statistics  whose  magnitude  is  almost  oppressive.  The  value  of  farm 
productions  in  the  United  States,  in  the  year  1870,  was  considerably 
over  $2,000,000,000. 

The  value  of  farm  productions  in  the  State  of  New  York,  the  same 
year,  was  over  $250,000,000. 

Does  not  common-sense  tell  us  that  we  can  well  afford  to  make  a 
little  outlay  to  promote  any  sciences  which  may  help  such  a  vast  in- 
terest ?  If  in  the  course  of  years,  in  all  these  laboratories  and  experi- 
ments, some^one  useful  idea  shall  be  struck  out,  it  would  repay  our 
endowments  a  thousand-fold. 

Says  Emerson,  "  The  true  poet  is  an  inspired  prophet."  Did  you 
ever  think  what  an  inspiration  lies  in  the  poet's  declaration  that  "  the 
greatest  benefactor  of  mankind  is  he  who  makes  two  blades  of  grass 
grow  where  one  grew  before  ?  "  If  not,  look  at  the  census  returns  show- 
ing the  enormous  value  of  the  hay-crop  of  these  Northern  States. 

Knowledge  of  Nature — coming  by  research  and  observation  in  the 
laboratory  and  the  field — these  are  to  give  us  finally  our  "  two  blades 
of  grass,"  and  multitudes  of  other  benefactions  to  our  race  not  less 
precious. 

The  Sheffield  Scientific  School  at  Yale  College  has  not  a  single  stu- 


SCIENTIFIC  AND   INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.       13 

dent  in  agriculture,  but  Profs.  Brewer  and  Johnson,  by  their  experi- 
ments on  fertilizers  and  kindred  subjects,  have  returned  the  value  of 
their  endowment  to  the  nation  a  hundred-fold  already. 

Take  another  item.  The  dairy  products  of  New  York  in  1870  were 
over  100,000,000  pounds  of  butter,  and  over  20,000,000  pounds  of 
cheese.  Now,  there  has  been  quietly  at  work,  in  our  Laboratory  of 
Agricultural  Chemistry  at  Cornell  University,  a  young  professor,  Mr. 
George  C.  Caldwell.  He  has  made  little  noise  in  the  world.  While 
Dr.  McCosh  was  striking  the  stars  with  his  lofty  head,  and  his  voice 
was  shaking  the  Agricultural  Colleges,  this  young  man  worked  quietly 
on  upon  the  chemistry  of  the  dairy.  Said  Mr.  L.  B.  Arnold,  an  au- 
thority you  all  recognize,  "Prof.  CaldwelPs  researches  on  the  chemis- 
try of  the  dairy  are  worth  more  to  the  State  than  your  whole  endow- 
ment. He  has  taught  us  to  do  such  things  in  dairy  matters  and  to 
increase  dairy  products  as  we  never  dreamed  of  doing."  And  to  this, 
substantially,  Mr.  Arnold  lias  lately  sworn  before  the  Commission  of 
Investigation. 

Take  a  few  figures  more  from  the  same  census.  In  1870  the  market- 
garden  and  orchard  products  of  the  State  of  New  York  amounted  in 
value  to  close  upon  $12,000,000. 

Can  any  one,  then,  gainsay  the  wisdom  of  our  employing,  as  we  do, 
a  young  naturalist  of  genius  to  devote  his  whole  time  to  investigations 
regarding  insects  injurious  to  vegetation,  and  to  giving  lectures  based 
upon  these  reseai'ches  ? 

Take  still  other  figures.  The  same  census  shows  the  value  of  farm 
implements  in  the  State  of  New  York  to  be  over  $45,000,000.  In  view 
of  this  we  have  investigations  and  lectures  upon  mechanics  related  to 
agriculture,  and  have  obtained  models  and  implements  at  home  and 
abroad  to  illustrate  this  subject.  Is  not  the  mere  pittance  this  requires 
well  laid  out  ? 

I  remember  some  years  since  seeing  a  paragraph  going  the  rounds 
of  the  papers,  stating  that  President  "White  had  sent  from  Europe  to 
Cornell  University  an  Oxford  professor  and  a  horse-doctor.  The 
charge  was  true.  The  Oxford  professor  was  Goldwin  Smith ;  "  the 
horse-doctor"  was  Prof.  James  Law,  formerly  of  the  Royal  Veterinary 
College  at  London.  Each  one  of  these  men,  in  his  way,  has  been  a 
blessing  to  the  University  and  to  the  country.  But  look  at  a  few 
more  figures  from  the  census.  The  number  of  horses  in  the  State  of 
New  York  is  over  800,000 ;  the  number  of  neat-cattle  exceeds  2,000,000. 
Prof.  Law's  lecture-room  is  one  of  the  most  attractive  places  I  know, 
for  animal  physiology  is  a  study  worthy  of  any  man,  but,  even  if  he 
never  taught  a  student,  in  view  of  this  vast  interest  is  it  not  well 
worth  while  to  provide  such  a  man  to  investigate  such  a  subject  ? 

Take  another  branch.  We  have  been  fitting  up  an  establishment 
for  experiments  in  the  best  rotation  of  crops  and  in  the  feeding  of 
cattle.  A  careful  and  resident  professor  has  been  called  to  carry  on 


14  THE  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

these,  and  I  trust  that  Mr.  E.  TV.  Stewart  may  be  called  to  superintend 
them. 

Some  time  since,  in  view  of  this  matter,  I  visited  certain  cattle- 
feeding  establishments  with  a  gentleman  whose  sound  sense  on  sucli 
matters  you  all  recognize,  Hon.  George  Geddes.  Said  he:  "This  ex- 
periment, fairly  tried,  will  be  worth  to  the  State  of  New  York  more 
than  your  whole  endowment,  no  matter  -which  way  it  turns  out — no 
matter  whether  '  soiling '  is  found  profitable  or  unprofitable ;  to  try 
this  matter  fully,  and  fairly,  and  scientifically,  will  be  worth  more  than 
your  endowment." 

The  act  of  1862  also  provides  with  special  care  for  instruction  in 
"BRANCHES  RELATING  TO  THE  MECHANIC  ARTS." 

If  you  doubt  the  wisdom  of  this,  look  again  at  the  last  census.  There 
you  find  the  manufactures  of  the  United  States  valued  at  $4,000,000,000, 
and  over  2,000,000  persons  engaged  in  them.  Can  education  be  made 
useful  to  this  vast  interest  ?  Other  nations  think  so,  and  are  laying 
out  vast  sums  in  this  direction.  Some  of  our  sister  States  are  doing 
admirably  in  this  respect.  Illinois  and  Massachusetts  have  made  ex- 
cellent provision  for  mechanical  science,  and  the  recent  message  of 
Governor  Bagley,  of  Michigan,  shows  that  good  work  is  to  be  done  in 
that  State.  In  an  address  delivered  before  this  Society  a  few  years 
since  I  described  some  of  those  foreign  institutions.  I  trust,  then, 
that  you  will  pardon  me  for  describing  that  which  we  have  since  cre- 
ated in  this  State. 

Thanks  to  one  of  our  trustees,  a  noble  provision  has  been  added 
for  this  purpose  to  that  originally  made  by  the  nation. 

The  Hon.  Hiram  Sibley,  of  Rochester,  has  erected  a  building, 
equipped  it  with  lecture-rooms,  draughting-rooms,  a  workshop  supplied 
with  the  best  machinery,  and  has  given  an  endowment  to  support  a 
Professor  of  Mechanical  Engineering  and  a  superintendent  of  the 
machine-shop.  Besides  this,  Mr.  Cornell  has  erected  a  shop  for  wood- 
working, and  has  provided  water-power  for  both  establishments. 

"What  is  the  system  *  Young  men  come  wishing  to  make  them- 
selves first-class  mechanical  engineers  or  master-mechanics,  or  to  per- 
fect themselves  in  any  branch  of  mechanical  industry.  Under  careful 
instructors,  they  are  carried  through  the  various  sciences  bearing  on 
their  profession.  They  are  taught  mathematics  in  all  their  relations 
to  mechanics.  In  one  room  they  go  on  with  the  mathematical  and 
mechanical  drawing  of  machinery,  in  another  with  free-hand  drawing ; 
in  the  laboratory  they  are  taken  through  various  processes  bearing 
upon  their  profession.  A  certain  number  of  hours  every  day  they  must 
give  to  the  workshop,  and  there,  in  well-worn  apron  and  rolled-up 
sleeves,  they  go  on  under  careful  supervision  from  the  use  of  the  sim- 
plest machinery  and  the  plainest  work  to  the  most  complicated.  The 
purpose  is  to  send  out  every  year  a  body  of  young  men  with  not  mere- 
ly a  very  high  grade  of  theoretical  instruction,  but  with  most  thorough 


SCIENTIFIC  AND   INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.       15 

practical  instruction — men  who  cannot  merely  calculate  the  size  of 
parts  of  a  machine,  but  who  can  draw  it  after  they  have  calculated  it, 
and  make  it  after  they  have  drawn  it.  These  are  the  men  whom  our 
country  sorely  needs  to  complete  the  organization  of  its  great  army  of 
industry.  Indeed,  I  know  of  no -more  pressing  material  need  in  this 
country.  Our  land  has  more  mechanical  ingenuity  in  it  than  any 
other;  but  did  you  ever  think  of  its  wretched  misdirection  and  waste 
for  want  of  industrial  education  ?  If  not,  stroll  through  the  national 
Patent-Office.  Look  at  a  few  facts.  In  one  of  our  most  important 
cities  are  engines  for  supplying  that  city  with  water — erected  at  vast 
expense.  The  whole  amount  was  wasted.  There  is  ingenuity  in  that 
vast  machine,  there  is  skill  in  it ;  but,  for  want  of  education  regarding 
certain  principles  involved,  the  whole  thing  is  failure  and  waste. 

Take  another  case.  A  few  years  since,  with  a  small  party  of  our 
fellow-citizens,  I  visited  the  "West  Indies  in  a  national  ship.  She  was 
a  noble  vessel,  and  her  engines  had  cost,  it  is  said,  nearly  $800,000. 
The  engines  showed  ingenuity ;  but  they  were  so  deficient  in  proper 
elements  of  construction  that  our  voyage  was  prolonged  until  we  were 
all  given  up  as  lost  and  had  the  honor  of  having  our  obituaries  in  the 
leading  newspapers  !  The  first  voyage  of  those  engines  was  the  last. 
They  were  sold  for  old  iron ;  and  the  sum  lost  on  them  alone  was  suffi- 
cient to  endow  the  finest  institution  for  mechanical  engineering  in 
the  world  !  I  might  multiply  examples  of  this  sort,  but  this  is  enough 
to  show  what  need  exists  for  more  careful  training  in  this  direction, 
and  I  pass  to  a  kindred  department. 

Another  great  department  bearing  on  a  multitude  of  industries, 
directly  and  indirectly,  is  CIVIL  EXGIXEEEIXG.  Take  one  among  the 
fields  of  its  activity.  We  have  in  the  United  States  about  seventy 
thousand  miles  of  railway,  and  every  year  thousands  of  miles  are  added. 
I  do  n at  at  all  exaggerate  when  I  say  that  millions  on  millions  of  dol- 
lars are  lost  every  year  by  the  employment  of  half-educated  engineers. 
Proofs  of  this  meet  you  on  every  side.  Lines  in  wrong  positions,  bad 
grades  and  curves,  tunnels  cut  and  bridges  built  which  might  be 
avoided.  All  of  us  know  the  story. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Hardly  a  community  which  has  not  some  story 
to  tell  of  great  losses  entailed  by  bad  engineering  in  other  directions. 
I  have  known  the  traffic  of  a  great  city  street  interrupted  for  a  year, 
because  no  engineer  could  be  found  able  to  make  the  calculations  for 
a  "  skew  arch  "  bridge,  a  thing  which  any  graduate  of  a  well-equipped 
department  of  engineering  can  do.  I  have  known  a  city  subjected  to 
enormous  loss  by  the  failure  of  its  water-supply  system,  because  the 
engineer  employed  made  no  calculation  for  the  friction  of  water  in  the 
pipes.  I  know  a  whole  district  sickened  by  miasma,  because  a  half- 
taught  engineer  was  intrusted  with  its  drainage.  We  must  prepare 
men  for  better  work ;  and,  for  every  dollar  thus  laid  out,  we  shall  cre- 
ate or  save  thousands. 


16  THE  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

Take  next,  then,  SANITARY  ENGINEERING.  Science  has,  within  a 
few  years,  made  wonderful  strides  in  revealing  the  origin  and  propa- 
gation of  disease.  The  summaries  recently  made  by  President  Bar- 
nard, Prof.  Dalton,  and  Prof.  Chandler,  give  an  admirable  view  of  this 
conquest.  Mr.  Baldwin  Latham,  in  his  recent  book  on  "  Sanitary  En- 
gineering," gives  careful  tables,  showing  the  enormous  reduction  of 
consumption,  typhus,  and  typhoid,  in  several  English  towns  by  the 
application  of  science  to  sewerage  and  water-supply.  Dr.  Beale,  in 
his  work  on  "Disease-Germs,"  shows  by  statistics  that  a  proper 
application  of  engineering  to  sewerage  would  save  100,000  lives 
yearly  in  Great  Britain.  -More  and  more  is  this  matter  becoming  im- 
portant in  this  country.  Hardly  one  in  twenty  of  our  towns  has  any 
well-adjusted  system  of  sewerage  or  water-supply,  and  in  our  rural 
districts  vast  tracts  are  made  wretched  by  miasma. 

Nor  is  this  probably  the  worst.  Vicious  systems  of  heating  and 
ventilation  are  probably  doing  more  to  break  down  the  physical  con- 
stitution of  our  people  than  all  other  causes  combined.  We  see  it 
everywhere  in  -sickly  women,  and  puny  children,  and  men  but  half 
alive.  The  study  of  human  physiology  and  the  system  of  prevent- 
ing and  removing  disease-germs  should  be  combined,  and  young  men 
should  have  the  opportunity  to  fit  themselves  for  grappling  with  the 
problems  presented  to  sanitary  engineers. 

Few  among  us  dream  of  the  monstrous  waste  now  entailed  upon 
this  country  by  imperfect  instruction  in  MIXING  ENGINEERING  and 
metallurgy.  Take  first  the  losses  by  fraud.  A  few  years  since  our 
people  were  asked  to  invest  in  a  Nevada  mine  of  great  richness.  Half- 
educated  mining  geologists  had  certified  to  its  value.  But  certain 
capitalists  sent  a  young  man,  carefully  educated  in  a  scientific  school, 
to  examine  and  report.  The  young  man  on  arriving  found  that  the 
mine  looked  well  enough,  but  on  applying  more  scientific  tests  he 
found  that  an  old  worthless  mine  had  been  taken  ;  that  rich  sulphurets 
had  been  brought  and  carefully  placed  in  it  at  a  cost  of  probably 
8100,000.  His  report  exploded  the  fraud,  and  nearly  $1,000,000  was 
saved — more  than  five  times  the  sum  that  this  scientific  school  received 
from  the  Government  of  the  United  States.  This  same  gentleman  also 
exploded  a  great  diamond-mine  fraud  of  the  same  sort. 

Take  another  case.  Not  long  since  a  party  of  gentlemen  deter- 
mined to  invest  several  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  working  certain 
iron-mines  in  this  State.  Just  before  their  arrangements  were  finally 
made,  and  much  againsfc  the  will  of  many  of  the  proposed  stock-hold- 
ers, a  young  graduate  of  one  of  the  scientific  schools  which  received  the 
national  endowment  was  sent  to  make  an  examination.  He  found  that 
the  veins  contained  titanium,  and  that  the  entire  investment,  should  it 
be  made,  would  be  lost.  His  fee  was  $250  ;  he  prevented  a  loss  of 
over  $400,000. 

You  see  now  why  Pennsylvania  and  Missouri  and  California  and 


SCIENTIFIC  AND  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.       17 

Massachusetts  are  aroused  as  to  this  matter  also,  but  you  will  perhaps 
say  that  Xew  York  is  but  little  interested  here.  Look  again  at  the  cen- 
sus, and  you  will  see  how  wretchedly  you  are  mistaken.  The  value 
of  the  mining  products  in  New  York  in  1870  was  more  than  half  that 
of  the  entire  gold  product  of  California.  Here,  too,  we  must  follow 
up  the  good  work  begun  by  our  Chandlers  and  Raymonds. 

Look  next  at  CHEMISTRY  APPLIED  TO  MANUFACTURES.  More  and 
more  the  chemical  laboratory  is  becoming  a  great  central  point  in 
industrial  education.  Run  over  but  two  or  three  points  out  of 
many.  A  chemical  discovery  in  coloring-matter  has  given  us  a  sub- 
stitute for  madder,  and  restored  the  great  area  given  to  cultivation 
of  that  material  to  the  increase  of  material  for  human  sustenance. 
An  apparently  trivial  application  of  another  chemical  principle  has 
enabled  Onondaga  to  purify  its  product  so  that  it  now  competes  with 
the  world  in  the  purity  of  its  salt  for  the  dairy.  Another  application 
has  enabled  another  part  of  the  State  to  make  quantities  of  steel  for- 
merly undreamed  of.  And  all  this  is  but  the  beginning  of  the  applica- 
tions of  chemistry  to  increase  the  well-being  of  the  State  and  nation. 

AVe  must  also  make  provision  for  instruction  in  ARCHITECTURE. 
Wealth  and  public  spirit — individual  and  municipal — are  now  erect- 
ing myriads  of  costly  buildings  in  all  parts  of  our  country.  The  num- 
ber of  uneducated  architects  is  very  great — the  number  of  thoroughly 
prepared  architects  is  very  small.  Have  you  ever  considered  the 
waste  attendant  upon  this  ?  Every  month  you  hear  of  some  architect- 
ural failure  that  costs  life  and  treasure.  To-day  it  is  a  church-floor 
which  gives  way,  and  a  multitude  of  children  are  taken  from  the  rums 
mangled  and  dead ;  to-morrow  it  is  a  whole  city  quarter  swept  away 
by  fire,  because  some  half-taught  architects  knew  no  other  way  of 
producing  architectural  effect  than  by  piling  up  combustible  orna- 
ments on  inaccessible  roofs. 

Xor  is  that  all.  Our  people  are  laying  out  millions  on  millions  in 
buildings  which  within  thirty  years — in  the  advance  of  taste  and 
knowledge — will  be  eye-sores  and  must  come  down.  A  building  erect- 
ed by  a  true  architect  will  grow  more  beautiful  for  hundreds  of  years. 
A  building  erected  by  a  sham  architect  will  be  an  incubus  in  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century.  People  are  beginning  to  see  this,  and  we  are  en- 
deavoring to  prepare  men  thoroughly  to  know  the  best  materials,  to 
calculate  their  strength  in  construction,  and  to  combine  material  and 
construction  according  to  everlasting  laws,  and  not  according  to  some 
pretty  present  fashion  ;  and  this  is  the  purpose  of  our  School  of  Ar- 
chitecture. 

Look  now  at  instruction  in  DRAWING.  The  casual  visitor  to  an 
institution  like  that  established  in  this  State  will  often  say  something 
like  this :  "  I  can  understand  the  value  of  your  libraries,  collections 
in  natural  history,  apparatus,  models,  shops,  and  lecture-rooms ;  but 
what  is  the  use  of  your  great  draughting-rooms  ?  " 


i8  THE  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

If  I  answer  that  drawing  is  taught  in  one  for  civil  engineers  ;  in 
another  for  mechanical  engineers ;  in  another  for  architects ;  in  an- 
other free-hand  drawing  for  all  these  together,  he  will  say :  "  Why 
teach  free-hand  drawing  at  all  ?  That  is  rather  artistic  than  indus- 
trial." 

Is  it  ?  Look  at  a  few  recents  facts.  A  few  years  since  the  State 
of  Massachusetts  passed  a  law  requiring  free-hand  drawing  to  be  pro- 
vided for  in  the  public-school  system  throughout  the  State.  The  city 
of  Boston  did  the  same.  State  and  city  combined  to  call,  from  the 
great  English  school  for  industrial  art  at  South  Kensington,  Mr.  Wal- 
ter Smith,  at  a  salary  of  85,000,  to  direct  the  schools  of  that  city  and 
State. 

Mr.  Smith  has  worked  on,  and  the  result  is  that  already  this  in- 
struction has  been  admirably  developed.  Now,  why  has  this  been 
done  ?  Has  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  which  we  have  always  known 
as  so  thoughful  in  its  legislation  and  education,  really  fallen  into  mere 
dilettanteism  ?  Not  at  all.  Look  at  a  few  more  figures  from  the  census. 

In  1870  the  product  of  Massachusetts  in  printed  cottons  was  over 
$17,000,000,  and  her  product  of  other  goods  into  which  the  arts  of 
design  enter  as  a  matter  of  first  importance  was  doubtless  even  more. 
Massachusetts  is  thoughtful  as  ever.  She  sees  that  other  States  are 
overtaking  her  in  manufactures  so  far  as  quantity  and  quality  of  ma- 
terial are  concerned,  but  she  determines  to  distance  them  by  spread- 
ing throughout  her  borders  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  beauty  in 
design  and  skill  in  them.  And  she  never  did  a  wiser  thing.  It  will 
tell  on  a  multitude  of  industries.  Why  do  we  import  such  vast  quan- 
tities of  English,  German,  and  Danish  glassware  and  pottery  ? — be- 
cause they  are  better  in  material  than  ours  ?  No  ;  but  because  they 
have  a  beauty  in  design  which  leads  the  most  illiterate  to  choose 
them.  Why  do  we  import  such  quantities  of  silks  and  carpets  and 
chintzes  and  wall-papers  from  France  ?  The  Cheneys  make  silks  as 
good  in  quality  on  this  side  of  the  ocean  as  the  Compagnie  Lyonnaise 
make  on  the  other ;  the  Bigelows  make  carpets  just  as  good  in  ma- 
terial here  as  the  D'Aubusson  factory  makes  there ;  and  yet,  when  our 
wives  and  daughters  see  these  foreign  fabrics,  they  immediately  prefer 
them.  Why  ?  Simply  because  there  generally  are  in  the  foreign  prod- 
uct a  skill,  a  beauty,  a  taste  in  design,  that  appeal  to  that  sense  of 
beauty  which  God  has  implanted  in  the  rudest  of  our  race. 

Other  nations  in  this  warfare  of  industry  see  this.  England  is  de- 
voting millions  to  art  education,  in  order  to  keep  up  her  manufactures, 
and  it  has  established  in  the  Privy  Council  a  science  and  art  section  to 
direct  this  expenditure  wisely  ;  Germany  is  doing  even  more  ;  France 
has  been  doing  it  for  generations,  and  it  has  given  her  the  supremacy 
thus  far  in  a  multitude  of  branches  of  manufacture. 

If  you  wish  to  see  how  these  nations  have  done  and  are  doing  this, 
look  at  Mr.  Stetson's  admirable  little  book  on  "  Technical  Education." 


SCIENTIFIC  AND  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.       19 

You  will  there  see  that  Prussia  alone  gives  industrial  education  in 
various  branches  to  over  11,000  men.  If  you  wish  to  see  how  public- 
spirited  individuals  have  done  this,  visit  the  draughting-rooms  of  the 
Cooper  Institute,  and  Worcester  Institute,  and  Lafayette  College. 

Already  the  value  of  this  is  known  to  our  manufacturers.  Mr. 
Stebbins  tells  us  that  one  silver-ware  establishment  in  the  city  of  New 
York  pays  a  graduate  of  one  of  these  foreign  schools,  for  making  de- 
signs and  patterns,  as  high  a  salary  as  our  Empire  State  gives  its 
Governor. 

But  it  may  be  said,  "The  French  are  naturally  artistic;  our  people 
are  not."  But,  look  at  history ;  see  how  it  disposes  of  these  short  and 
easy  excuses  for  doing  nothing.  The  French  are  descended,  on  one 
side,  from  the  most  unartistic  nation  of  antiquity,  and  on  the  other 
from  painted  barbarians.  As  to  the  former,  one  of  their  greatest  poets 
boasted  that  his  fellow-Romans  could  tyrannize  over  the  world,  but 
had  no  capacity  for  art.  As  to  the  latter,  Guizot,  one  of  the  greatest 
of  statesmen  and  historians,  shows  that  the  barbarian  ancestors  of  the 
French  had  the  same  fundamental  ideas  as  American  savages. 

When  our  ancestors  were  savages,  their  ancestors  were  savages. 
It  is  only  a  few  generations  since,  if  they  wished  for  good  artistic 
work,  they  had  to  send  to  Italy  for  it.  The  French  are  "  naturally 
artistic  "  because  Liancourt,  and  other  patriots  like  him,  began,  a  hun- 
dred years  ago,  to  create  those  great  systems  of  education — scientific, 
industrial,  and  artistic — which  have  given  the  French  almost  the  mo- 
nopoly in  supplying  products  of  skill  and  beauty  to  the  markets  of 
the  whole  world. 

To  complete  the  system  provided  by  the  great  congressional  act 
of  1862,  it  was  declared  that  instruction  in  MILITARY  TACTICS  shall  also 
be  included. 

Xot  least  among  the  evidences  of  statesmanship  in  that  bill  was 
this  last  clause.  The  idea  it  embodies  has  been  too  long  neglected. 
Of  all  fatal  things  for  a  republic,  the  most  fatal  is  to  have  its  educated 
men  in  various  professions  so  educated  that,  in  any  civil  commotion, 
they  must  cower  in  corners,  and  relinquish  the  control  of  armed  force 
to  communists  and  demagogues.  The  national  colleges  have  carried 
out  this  part  of  the  act,  sometimes  by  giving  advanced  military  in- 
struction, but  generally  by  careful  drilling  of  the  whole  body  of  stu- 
dents. The  system  has  been  found  to  give  health  and  manly  dignity 
to  the  student ;  to  the  nation  it  is  to  give  a  great  body  of  well-trained 
men,  ready  to  organize  and  control  the  best  elements  of  society  against 
any  outbreak  of  anarchy  or  treason. 

And  now  a  few  words  regarding  the  general  education  which  goes 
with  these  various  branches  of  industrial  and  scientific  education. 
The  student  must  be  not  only  trained  as  a  specialist,  he  must  also  be 
educated  as  a  man  and  a  citizen.  Hence  the  necessity  of  blending 
into  the  various  special  courses  certain  general  studies  calculated  to 


20  THE  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

give  breadth  and  foresight  and  insight.  Among  these  I  name,  first, 
instruction  in  HISTORY  AND  POLITICAL  SCIENCE. 

On  this  subject,  the  "  new  education"  lays  stress,  and  especially 
on  the  history  of  our  own  race  and  country.  The  subject  has  been 
sadly  neglected ;  but  more  and  more  it  is  seen  that,  to  train  men  to 
build  up  the  future,  we  must  show  them  with  what  successes  and  fail- 
ures their  predecessors  have  built  up  the  past. 

Thought,  too,  should  be  stirred  on  the  more  pressing  problems  in 
SOCIAL  SCIENCE,  and  among  them  the  best  methods  of  dealing  with 
pauperism,  crime,  insanity,  sanitary  management,  and  public  instruc- 
tion. Foundations  for  study  on  these  might,  at  least,  be  laid,  and 
right  direction  given  to  those  whose  tastes  turn  toward  participation 
in  public  affairs. 

No  thoughtful  man  will  deny  that  it  is  well  to  give  even  to  students 
in  industrial  branches  access  to  the  best  thoughts  of  the  best  thinkers 
— the  study  of  the  great  languages  and  LITERATURE  does  this — and 
especially  is  it  done  by  the  study  of  this  wonderful  language  and  lit- 
erature of  our  own. 

Another  most  important  means  of  discipline  and  culture  is  to  be 
found  in  the  study  of  THE  NATURAL  SCIENCES.  On  these  much  of  in- 
dustrial and  general  progress  depends.  They  discipline  the  power  of 
observation,  and  reasoning  upon  observation.  They  give,  too,  a  cult- 
ure to  the  sense  of  beauty  in  form,  and  fitness  in  adaptation. 

But  I  am  aware  that  objection  is  made  to  the  study  of  Natural 
Science  on  the  ground  of  a  dangerous  materialistic  tendency. 

But  can  this  objection  be  well  founded  ?  Among  the  many  strik- 
ing passages  in  Herbert  Spencer's  "Treatise  on  Education"  is  one  of 
special  interest  on  this  point.  He  asks,  what  would  any  author  think 
were  a  person  to  come  into  his  presence,  praise  his  works,  and  dwell 
upon  their  beauty  and  perfection,  when  the  author  knew  that  this 
flatterer  had  never  read  a  single  page,  or  even  a  single  line,  of  them  ? 
And  what,  then,  must  the  Great  Author  of  all  things  think  of  one  who 
thus  comes  into  his  presence,  extols  his  works  in  all  moods  and  tenses, 
the  Great  Author  knowing  that  this  flatterer  has  never  studied  out  a 
line  in  the  great  book  of  Nature — nay,  that  he  has  discouraged  others 
from  studying  it  ?  I  come  now  to  certain  GUIDING  IDEAS — necessary  in 
carrying  out  any  worthy  system  of  scientific  and  industrial  education. 

1.  Of  these  I  name  UNSECTARIANISM.  Our  own  charter  makes 
"  men  of  all  sects  and  parties,  and  of  no  sect  or  party,  equally  eligible 
to  all  offices  and  appointments."  For  this,  some  good  men  have 
thought  it  their  duty  to  denounce  us  from  pulpit  and  press  as  "  god- 
less ; "  but  it  has  proved  our  salvation.  It  has  enlisted  benefactors  of 
every  creed.  That  it  has  taken  strong  hold  upon  the  people  is  shown 
by  the  millions  given  the  institutions  on  this  basis,  and  by  the  steady 
support  of  these  despite  all  calumnies.  There  is  no  other  possible 
basis  for  the  development  of  great  institutions  for  scientific  and  indus- 


SCIENTIFIC  AND   INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.       21 

trial  education.  To  confine  their  choice  of  professors  to  any  one  de- 
nomination, or  circle  of  denominations,  is  to  dwarf  them ;  to  put  them 
under  control  of  any  synod,  conference,  association,  council,  or  con- 
vention, is  to  strangle  them. 

2.  I  name  FBEEDOM  OF  CHOICE  BETWEEN  VARIOUS   COURSES   OF 
STUDY.     The  old  way  in  the  more  venerable  colleges  and  universities 
was,  to  force  all  students  through  one  single  classical  course — the  same 
for  all.     This  system  the  "  new  education  "  discards.     General  courses 
in  literature,  science,  and  arts,  are  presented,  as  well  as  special  courses 
having  reference  to  the  great  industries ;  and  the  student,  with  the  ad- 
vice of  friends  and  instructors,  takes  that  which  best  suits  the  bent  of 
his  mind.     We  believe  that  the  results  are  already  better  than  those 
of  the  old  system.     Certainly  they  could  not  be  worse.     The  famous 
"  Blue-Book  of  the  Parliamentary  Commission "  on  advanced  educa- 
tion, in  England,  shows  that  under  the  old  system  there  seventy  per 
cent,  of  the  students  in  their  great  schools  and  universities  take  no 
real  hold  upon  classical  studies.     Few  will  claim  that  our  system  of 
classical  instruction  is  better  than  that  in  England.     If  any  of  you 
think  it  more  promising,  look  at  President  Barnard's  cogent  statistics 
on  this  point.     We  make  no  opposition  to  classical  instruction.     We 
agree  that,  for  those  who  take  earnest  hold  of  it,  it  is  one  of  the  no- 
blest means  of  discipline  and  culture ;  but  it  is  no  less  evident  that  for 
those  who  do  not  take  hold  of  it — who  merely  "  drone  "  over  it — it  is 
one  of  the  worst. 

3.  I  name  EQUALITY  IN  POSITION  AND  PRIVILEGE  BETWEEN  DIF- 
FERENT COURSES  OF  STUDY.     I  have  already  shown  how  courses  of 
study  in  science,  and  especially  those  bearing  on  industry,  have  been 
held,  in  various  places,  virtually  inferior  to  courses  of  study  in  litera- 
ture.    Against  this  we  stand  pledged.    We  are  determined  to  hold  all 
courses  and  all  students  as  equal ;  educating  them  together,  graduat- 
ing them  together,  welcoming  them  back  as  alumni  together.     But 
the   i{  new  education  "  does  not  merely  endeavor  to  give  a  greater 
range  of  studies,  it  seeks  also  to  improve  METHODS.     Let  me  mention 
two  of  these : 

1.  I  name  the  BETTER  USE  OF  THE  LECTURE  SYSTEM.     Those  who 
knew  Louis  Agassiz  well  will  never  be  at  a  loss  to  recall  conversa- 
tions, instructive  and  entertaining;  but  I  think  that,  among  them  all, 
none  conveyed  a  better  mixture  of  philosophy  and  fun  than  his  delin- 
eation of  the  recitation  of  text-books  by  rote,  as  it  has  been  so  long 
practised  in  our  American  colleges.     No  system  was  ever  better  cal- 
culated to  deaden  enthusiasm  and  stiffen  knowledge.     More  and  more 
we  are  coming  to  see  that,  wherever  possible,  we  must  bring  the  living 
mind  to  bear  on  the  student.     Thus  may  we  supplement  text-books, 
and  take  from  them  their  present  woodenness  and  dreariness. 

2.  I  name  THE  UNION   OF  STUDY   OF  THINGS  WITH   STUDY  ABOUT 
THINGS.     Under  the  old  system  it  was  book  in  the  morning,  book  in 


22  THE  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

the  afternoon,  book  in  the  evening — an  unceasing  round  of  studying 
what  men  have  said  about  things.  Under  the  better  system  of  the 
various  institutions  for  scientific  and  industrial  education,  the  student 
passes  frequently  from  study  about  things  to  study  of  the  things 
themselves,  in  laboratory  or  workshop,  in  draughting-room  or  museum, 
or  in  the  field.  Every  science  must  now  have  its  laboratory  practice, 
and  thereby  are  given  to  lectures  and  recitations  reality  and  interest. 
Thereby  is  gained  ability  to  bring  theory  to  bear  upon  practice. 

But  an  objection  of  another  sort  is  raised.  It  is  said,  "Why  give 
instruction  in  classical  branches  at  all  ?  "  I  answer,  for  three  reasons : 
1.  Because  the  act  of  Congress  declares  expressly  that  they  shall  not 
be  excluded.  2.  Because  to  those  who  wish  them  they  are  an  excel- 
lent means  of  culture.  3.  Because  we  wish  to  avoid  that  old  mistake 
of  separating  industrial  and  scientific  students  from  classical  students. 
Heretofore  students  in  science  and  technology  have  been  banished  to 
some  little  special  college  in  some  remote  corner  of  a  town  or  State, 
while  classical  students  have  had  all  the  prestige  arising  from  connec- 
tion with  large  and  thoroughly  equipped  institutions.  We  stand  upon 
the  principle  of  considering  one  student  the  equal  of  another — the 
student  in  science  and  industry  the  equal  of  the  student  in  classics. 
We  stand,  against  any  separation  which  shall  serve  to  perpetuate  that 
old  subordination  of  men  in  the  new  education  to  men  in  the  old. 

But  it  is  objected  that  the  new  system  does  not  provide  for  mental 
discipline.  Never  was  a  charge  more  absurd.  Discipline  comes  by 
studies  that  take  hold  of  a  man,  and  of  which  he  takes  hold.  Is  it  not 
evident  that  the  new  system,  which  adapts  studies  to  the  tastes  and 
aims  of  men,  is  more  sure  to  take  hold  and  be  taken  hold  of  than  the 
old  system,  which  grinds  all  alike  through  the  same  processes  and 
studies  ? 

But  it  is  said,  "Why  concentrate  your  resources  in  one  institu- 
tion ?  "  I  answer,  because  that  is  the  only  way  in  which  you  can  ever 
have  the  work  done.  To  erect,  equip  and  maintain  laboratories,  work- 
shops, farms,  collections,  libraries,  observatories — all  this  demands 
great  sums. 

To  have  such  institutions,  you  must  pay  the  price.  While  the 
rule,  as  already  stated,  regarding  preliminary  public  instruction,  is  to 
distribute  resources,  the  rule  in  regard  to  advanced  education — scien- 
tific, general,  or  industrial — is  to  concentrate  resources.  Look  at  it. 
The  last  report  of  the  Bureau  of  Education  shows  in  the  United  States 
397  institutions  called  colleges  or  universities,  and  you  can  count  on 
the  fingers  of  your  hands  all  those  worthy  of  either  name. 

Wisely,  then,  have  the  great  States  refused  to  yield  to  clamors  for 
scattering  or  frittering  away  these  funds.  Wisely  have  individuals 
poured  out  their  wealth  to  supplement  them. 

To  the  institution  in  our  own  State  already  over  $1,500,000  have 
been  given  by  individuals,  and  I  trust  that  this  is  but  a  beginning. 


SCIENTIFIC  AND  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION.       23 

Do  you  say  that  this  endowment  may  be  too  large  ?  Compare  the 
endowment  for  the  increase  of  intellectual  wealth  with  any  one  of  a 
thousand  endowments  for  the  increase  of  material  wealth.  Look  at 
the  hotels  of  your  great  cities.  Some  of  them  have  cost  more  than  the 
entire  outlay  in  buildings  for  advanced  instruction  throughout  whole 
States. 

But  it  may  be  said,  "Why  not  devote  all  your  resources  to  agri- 
cultural experiments  and  instruction  ?"  I  answer — 1.  The  law  of  the 
United  States  does  not  allow  it.  2.  Because  in  the  interest  of 
agriculture  itself  we  should  educate  men  to  develop  other  industries. 
What  is  the  great  want  of  our  Western  States  at  this  moment  ? 
Greater  agricultural  production  ?  No.  What  they  want  is,  the  de- 
velopment of  great  and  varied  manufacturing  industries,  so  near  them 
that  it  shall  no  longer  take  two-thirds  of  a  bushel  of  corn  to  carry  the 
other  third  from  producer  to  consumer. 

And,  finally,  it  is  objected  to  the  "  new  education"  that  it  is  god- 
less. There  is  nothing  new  in  this  charge.  It  has  been  made  against 
every  great  step  in  the  progress  of  science  or  education.  And  yet  it 
has  certainly  been  found  that  although  ideas  of  religion  are  changed 
from  age  to  age,  the  change  has  tended  constantly  to  make  these  re- 
ligious ideas  purer  and  nobler.  The  majority  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Church  held  the  new  idea  of  the  rotundity  of  the  earth  incompatible 
with  salvation.  Martin  Luther  thought  Copernicus  a  blasphemer  for 
his  new  idea  that  the  earth  revolves  about  the  sun,  and  not  the  sun 
about  the  e'arth.  Dean  Cockburn  declared  the  new  science  of  Geology 
a  study  invented  by  the  devil,  and  unlawful  for  Christians.  When 
John  Reuchlin  and  his  compeers  urged  the  substitution  of  studies  in 
the  classics  for  studies  in  the  mediaeval  scholastic  philosophy,  their 
books  were  burned,  and  they  themselves  narrowly  escaped  the  same 
fate. 

No,  my  friends ;  every  study  which  tends  to  improve  the  industry 
of  mankind  makes  a  man  nobler  and  better.  Every  study  which  gives 
man  to  know  more  of  the  history  of  his  race,  gives  him  to  see  more 
and  more  clearly  the  finger  of  Providence  in  history;  every  study 
which  brings  his  mind  into  contact  with  the  thoughts  of  inspired,  men 
as  exhibited  in  our  literatures,  builds  up  his  manliness  and  his  godli- 
ness, and  every  study  which  brings  him  into  close  contact  with  Nature 
in  any  of  its  fields  not  less  surely  lifts  him  "  through  Nature  up  to 
Nature's  God." 

I  have  thus  sketched  very  meagrely  the  growth  thus  far  of  the 
"  new  education."  Its  roots  are  firm,  for  they  take  fast  hold  upon 
the  strongest  material  necessities  of  our  land  ;  its  trunk  is  thrifty,  for 
it  is  fed  by  the  most  vitalizing  currents  of  thought  which  sweep 
through  our  time ;  nay,  the  very  blasts  of  opposition  to  this  growth 
have  but  strengthened  it ;  the  winter  of  discontent  through  which  it 
has  passed  has  but  toughened  it ;  and  in  agriculture  and  every  branch 


24  THE  POPULAR  SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

of  industry ;  in  every  science  and  art  •which  ministers  to  either ;  in  all 
the  development  of  human  thought  which  is  to  make  men  better  and 
braver,  it  is  to  bear  a  rich  fruitage  for  the  State,  for  the  nation,  and  for 
mankind. 


THE  POPULAR  SCIENCE  MONTHLY, 

(Established  May,  1872.) 

Conducted  by  Prof.  E.  L.  YOUMANS. 


THE  POPULAR  SCIENCE  MONTHLY  was  started  to  promote  the  difiusion  of  valuable  sci- 
entific knowledge,  in  a  readable  and  attractive  form,  among  all  classes  of  the  community, 
and  has  thus  far  met  a  want  supplied  by  no  other  periodical  in  the  United  States. 

The  great  feature  of  the  magazine  is,  that  its  contents  are  not  what  science  was  ten 
or  more  years  since,  but  what  it  is  to-day,  fresh  from  .the  study,  the  laboratory,  and  the 
experiment :  clothed  in  the  language  of  the  authors,  inventors,  and  scientists  themselves, 
which  comprise  the  leading  minds  of  England,  France,  Germany,  and  the  United  States. 
Among  popular  articles,  covering  the  whole  range  of  NATURAL  SCIENCE,  we  have  the 
latest  thoughts  and  words  of  Herbert  Spencer,  and  Professors  Huxley,  Tyndall,  and  R.  A. 
Proctor.  Since  the  start,  it  has  proved  a  gratifying  success  to  every  friend  of  scientific 
progress  and  universal  education ;  and  those  who  believed  that  science  could  not  be 
made  any  thing  but  dry  study,  are  disappointed. 

The  press  all  over  the  land  is  warmly  (  ommending  it.  We  subjoin  a  few  encomiums 
from  those  recently  given  : 

"  That  there  is  a  place  for  THE  POPULAR  SCIKNCK 
MONTHLY,  no  one  can  doubt  wLo  has  watched  the 
steady  increase  of  interest  in  scientific  investigation 
manifested  in  this  country,  not  only  by  ;i 
class,  but  by  the  entire  community.'* — New  York 
Titnes. 

"  A  journal  which  promises  to  be  of  eminent 
value  to  the  cause  of  popular  education  in  this 
country." — New  York  Tribune. 

It  is.  beyond  comparison,  the  best  attempt  it 
journalism  of  the  kind  ever  made  in  this  country." 
— Home  Journal. 

"  The  initial  number  is  admirably  constituted." 
— Evening  Mail. 

"  We  think  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  this  is 
the  best  first  number  of  any  magazine  ever  pu  >- 
lished  in  America.1" — New  York  World. 

"It  is  just  what  is  wanted  by  the  curious  and 
progressive  mind  of  this  country,  and  ought  to  )>e 
widely  circulated." — New  York  'Evening  Post. 

"It  is  the  first  successful  attempt  in  this  coun- 
try to  popularize  science  in  the  pages  of  a  niontli- 


try  to  po' 
ly."— N. 


Y.  School  Journal. 


"Not  the  less  entertaining  because  It  is  instruc- 
tive."— Philadelphia  Age. 

"  THE  MONTHLY  has  more  than  fulfilled  all  t>v« 
promises  which  the  publishers  made  in  th' 
gpectus  of  publication." — Niagara  falls  Gazttte. 

"It  places  before  American  readers  what  the 
ablest  men  of  science  throughout  the  world  write 
about  their  meditations,  speculations,  and  discover- 
ies."— I*rovidence  Journal. 


"  This  is  a  highly-auspicicus  beginning  of  a  use- 
ful and  much-needed  enterprise  in  the  way  of  pub- 
lication, for  which  the  public  owe  a  special  debt  of 
obligation  to  Messrs.  [).  Appleton  &  Co." — Boston 
Gazette,. 

"  This  new  enterprise  appeals  to  all  who  are  in- 
terested in  the  laudable  effort  of  diffusing  that  infor- 
mation which  is  best  calculated  to  expand  the  mind 
and  improve  the  conditions,  and  enhance  the  worth 
of  life."— Golden  Age. 

"Just  the  publication  needed  at  the  present  day." 
Montreal  Gazette. 

"  This  new  magazine,  in  our  estimation,  has  more 
merit  than  the  whole  brood  which  have  preceded 
it.1' — Ofweffo  Prets. 

In  our  opinion,  the  right  Uea  has  been  happily 
hit  in  the  plan  of  this  ne.v  monthly." — Buffalo 
Courier. 

"  This  is  one  of  the  very  best  periodicals  of  it» 
kind  published  in  the  world".  Its  corps  of  contribu- 
tors comprise  many  of  the  ablest  minds  known  to 
science  and  literature.  It  is  doing  a  great  and 
noble  work  in  popularizing  science,  promoting  tbe 
growth  of  reason,  and  leveling  the  battlements  of 
old  superstitions  reared  in  the  childhood  of  our  race 
before  it  was  capable  of  reasoning." — Tlte  American 
MedicalJournal.  St.  Louis.  Mo. 

"This  magazine  is  worth  its  weight  in  gold,  for 
its  service  in  educating  the  people." —  The  American 
Journal  of  Education,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

"This  monthly  enables  us  to  utilize  at  least  sev- 
eral years  more  of  life  than  it  would  be  possible  were 
we  "obliged  to  wait  its  publication  in  book-form 
at  the  hands  of  some  compiler.1'  —  The  Writing 
Teacher  and  Business  Advertiser,  New  York. 


THE  POPULAR  SCIENCE  MONTHLY  is  published  in  a  large  octavo,  handsomely  printed 
on  clear  type,  and,  when  the  subjects  admit,  fully  illustrated.  Each  number  contains 
128  pages. 

TERMS:  $5  per  Annum,  or  Fifty  Cents  per  Number. 

Any  person  remitting  $20.00  for  four  yearly  subscriptions,  will  receive  an  extra  copy 
gratis,  or  five  yearly  subscriptions  for  $20.00. 

JVotP  Readif,  Vols.  I.,  II.,  III.,  and  IV.,  of  The  Popular  Snienc.f  Monthly,  em- 
bracing the  Numbers  from  1  to  24  (May,  1872,  to  Ap*LlS74).  4  vols.,  Svo.  Cloth,  $8.50  per  voL  Half 
Morocco,  $6.50  per  vol.  ™ 

For  Snle,  liinitinr/  Cases  for  Vols.  J.,  II.,  III.,  IV..  of  The  fopulnr  Science 
Monthly.  These  covers  are  prepared  expressly  for  binding  the  volumes  of  THE  POPULAR  SCIENCE 
MONTHLY  as  they  appear,  and  will  be  sent  to  Subscribers  on  receipt  of  price.  Any  binder  can  attach  th« 
covers  at  a  trifling  expense.  Price,  60  cents  oach. 


ADDRESS 


D.  dPPLETON  $  CO.,  Publishers, 

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